


Secret

by alrightginger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, Secret Relationship, some smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28130157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alrightginger/pseuds/alrightginger
Summary: She’s come around in empty classrooms, in deserted corridors, in abandoned broom closets. She’s come around when no one is looking, because he’s allowed himself to become a secret.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110





	Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the prompt: “I'm tired of being your dirty little secret!" "You came to my room at 4am, to cuddle?" "can you guys just fuck already?"

The snogging starts almost by accident.

That’s what he’ll tell himself later anyway. He’ll be damned if he admits that he moved first in that moment.

James isn’t sure what triggers it exactly. All he knows is that one minute they’re arguing about an unresolved Heads issue, teeth gritted and tempers flaring, and the next he’s got her pressed up against a wall. 

_ High _ against a wall.

Her legs are wrapped around his waist and his hands are gripping at her thighs. He’s kissing her like he intends to bruise her. Like he’s trying to break her, he’s so frustrated. 

But that quickly melts away with the way her hand moves to tenderly cup his jaw, reining him in and making his movements slow until each kiss becomes longer than the last. 

He’s aware after sometime that their eyes are open — having never shut in the first place — and he maintains eye contact as he opens his mouth, her own responding in kind, and watches the way the emerald green he’s been so fascinated with for years now starts to slowly give way to black. 

She is gone for him. 

He has been that way since fifteen.

A sudden movement catches them off guard, causing them to break apart in alarm. James turns, not letting Lily down just yet, but finds nothing there but an empty corridor. 

“It’s probably just Peeves,” he reassures her because he can feel the way her legs are trembling around him.

She’s coming back to her senses and he hates when she does. He’s never in senseable territory when it comes to her judgments. 

“Let me go,” she says, patting his shoulder. “Please, James.” 

She rarely calls him James. Even after their newly established friendship last year, they had stuck to calling each other by their surnames out of pure habit. 

He lets her down gingerly. 

They stand there a bit awkwardly for a moment, Lily tugging the hem of her skirt to readjust it, before either of them speak again. 

“I would like it very much if we never spoke about this again,” Lily says, her eyes downcast towards the stone floor. “I just — I can’t… I’m not in the right place for  _ this.” _

She gestures at James and he swallows his intensity for her. 

\--

They don’t talk about it again. 

But they snog again. 

And again. 

And again. 

And again. 

They snog so many times that James begins to lose himself in them.

Lily is sprawled out on an empty classroom desk during one of these times where they don't talk, her legs wrapped around James’ waist again as he hovers over her, making her lean up on her elbows to kiss him. Making her work for it, and smirking against her lips as she does. 

_ “Mmph,”  _ she breathes against his lips, straining a bit to keep the angle she likes. He takes mercy on her, leaning further down so she’s able to rest her back against the desk. She sighs, happy, and it’s such a pretty sound. 

“You’re driving me wild, Evans,” he manages to choke out because she’s letting him run his calloused hand across the smooth skin of her leg until he reaches a part of her that he’s never seen uncovered before. Until his fingers brush something like lace, and her hips raise and he feels heat. 

“Please,” she begs  _ — begs —  _ and he realizes that she’s aching. Her voice cracks like she’s in pain, and she is pleading with him for something she doesn’t want to fully articulate. “Please, please touch me.”

He slips a finger in between her legs where the warmth welcomes him and threatens to drive him feral, and watches with wide blown eyes as her back arches and her lips part to make a sound he’s never heard from her before. It’s shattering, this sound. She collapses with it, and since he’s only human and she is anything but, he follows behind her, voicing a groan of his own.

He adds another finger and makes her do it again. 

\--

Things get mildly out of control after that, but unlike the snogging, James is able to track down when this starts to happen.

He’s at Hogsmeade when he realizes that Lily doesn’t want to be seen with him. Not unless she absolutely has to, that is. He’s exiting Zonko’s when he spots her with her arm through Mary’s, and offers her a wave. 

He knows she sees it because her cheeks blush scarlet which has nothing to do with the cold. 

He’s made her blush that way several times before. Just last night he had kissed the tint of her blush as he curled and bent his fingers inside of her, revealing in all the ways her warmth blossomed for him.

It’s a shade reserved for just him, but this time she turns away too quickly for him to see it spread its full length. 

This time she turns away from him instead of gravitating towards him.

She doesn’t even wave back. 

He’s standing there with his own hand hovering in the air when he feels another settle on his shoulder. 

“Tough luck, mate,” Sirius says, comforting. Steady. “She’ll come around eventually, I’m sure.”

She has come around, James wants to say. She’s come around in empty classrooms, in deserted corridors, in abandoned broom closets. 

She’s come around when no one is looking, because he’s allowed himself to become a secret.

—

“I’m tired of being your dirty little secret,” James tells her that night when they meet up for their patrol. 

He doesn’t shout it at her. He hardly even says it with anger, but Lily still takes a step back as if he’s slapped her across the face. As if she’s taken back by his words, and doesn’t understand where they’re coming from. 

He has to force himself not to wilt underneath her when she’s like this. To straighten his back and pretend that he has a bit of dignity left. 

“I know that in the past I was… a bit of an idiot,” he says, knowing that the word doesn’t quite cut it. “I know that I had a lot of growing up to do, but I’m different now, Lily. And even if I wasn’t, I don’t want you this way. I don’t  _ deserve  _ you just this way. You shouldn’t have to hide me, or what you feel.” 

“I’m not!” Lily protests. “I’m not hiding what I feel!”

“You couldn’t even look at me today. You couldn’t even just wave back. It’s like you’re ashamed of me.”

“It’s not you I’m ashamed of. It’s… it’s  _ me.  _ I’m scared, James.”

Lily does elaborate past that, though James offers her a prolonged silence to do so. He practically begs her to explain it to him with his eyes. It’s rare for her to be at a loss for words. To not be able to explain things.

Peeves knocks over a corridor’s worth of portraits before he can even consider why that is. 

— 

A week passes and James starts to regret what he’s said to her. He starts to think he’d rather have Lily partially than not at all. 

He reminds himself that this is just a different sort of misery than he felt before, and he doesn’t deserve that feeling at all from someone he loves. He deserves more than that.

He reminds himself again when she sits in front of him in Charms, and he finds it hard to focus because she smells like cinnamon and honey.

And again when she gathers her hair into a pony in Herbology, and he sees the fading mark of a love bite he’s left right before they fell apart. 

And again when she laughs at something Mary says in the library, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. 

And again…

—

James is halfway between reality and a dream when the curtains to his bed are drawn back. 

He blinks, thinking he must be imagining it, when he feels the bed sink beside him.

It takes him several moments of squinting in the dark without his glasses to see that Lily has slid into bed next to him. She must know his eyesight is rubbish because she moves closer without being asked, brushing some of his hair from his forehead. 

“Wanna cuddle?” 

James blinks, looking at the clock. “You came to my room at 4am, to cuddle?” 

“No. Well, I mean...yes. But not just for that.”

Lily lays down on his pillow, and he’s so stunned by the sight of her that it takes him several minutes to realize that he’s still propped up on his elbows, just watching her. He sinks down slowly until they’re laying nearly nose to nose. Until they’re facing each other, they’re hands curled up in between them.

Lily sighs, her eyes flickering towards the ceiling before she speaks. 

“You know you’re a pure-blood, right?”

James is so startled by this that he laughs. 

“I had forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Ugh… that’s — that’s not what I meant,” Lily growls, frustrated with herself. “I can explain the use for practically every Charm, perfectly brew a potion in half the amount of time it takes the rest of our class. I can even get a broom off the ground better than I can explain this!”

“What are you —“

“I’m not keeping you a secret because I’m ashamed of you, James. I’m keeping  _ me  _ a secret because I’m scared of what being seen with me will do to you. There’s — there’s a war out there, and because of it, I have a target on my back.”

James is dumbstruck.  _ This  _ has been why she doesn’t want to be seen with him. It’s got nothing to do with her possibly being ashamed of him. She’s trying to keep him safe. 

It’s  _ such  _ a Lily thing to do.

He laughs before he can help it. 

“Lily, that’s ridiculous! You know I don’t care what other people will think or say!”

“Don’t laugh at me, James Potter,” Lily warns. “Not when it comes to this. I like you so much that it  _ scares me.  _ I like you so much that I can’t make sense of it.”

“Then why not be with me? Why put us both through this?” 

“Because! You know what happened to Sirius’ cousin. How she fell in love with a Muggle and was disowned! Sirius has told me all about it.”

“My parents would never do that, Lily!” James argues, perhaps a bit too loud. She shushes him with a finger over his lips until he settles. When he speaks next, it’s much quieter. “They would never. My parents have known how much I…”

He trails off, blushing. As much as they’ve snogged, as much as they’ve done  _ other things,  _ they’ve never really talked about this before.

“Known what?” Lily presses, leaning in as if she urgently needs to hear this. “Known what, James?”

“They know how much I… like you,” James admits, his blush nearly burning his cheeks now. As if he’s twelve and telling a girl you like her is still a idiotic thing to do. “They know that I like you a lot. My parents… they would never do what Andromeda’s parents did to her. My mum loves hearing stories of you.”

“You talk to your parents about me?” Lily asks, voice quite, like she can’t quite believe it. Like she hasn’t been the center of his entire world since he was fifteen and too much of a prat to know how to handle it. 

“Of course,” he admits. He doesn’t blush this time. “I write home about you at least twice a week. The week you charmed pink streaks in my hair in sixth year after you got mad at me? My mum framed that letter. She reads it every morning and laughs. She adores you. She wants to meet you.”

“I’d love to meet her too. Really, I would. The woman who raised you? I have a whole list of questions for her.”

James grins. “Yeah? What would you ask her?”

“If your head was always exceptionally large. How they managed to get you out with it being so big.”

“Evans!”

Lily laughs, swiping at her eyes. He adores the way she laughs until she cries at her own jokes. He’s enamored with her sense of humor. 

“I’m only joking,” she tells him. “I’d love to hear stories of when you were younger. I’d listen to them for hours.”

“Maybe...you could come home with me for Christmas break, then? You can hear all about them.”

“I’d love that.”

James beams, feeling a thousand times lighter. He feels like he’s in the air in his broom instead of in bed next to Lily.

“Do you feel better now?” he asks. 

“I do. I just — I’m so sorry, James. I never meant to make you feel like I was ashamed of you. I’m not. I never have been. I wanted to keep you safe.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just make a deal that we’ll talk about this sort of thing more. That we won’t hold it in so that it gets too big.”

“Alright,” Lily agrees easily. She shifts closer to him, smiling. “But also… I’ve really missed  _ not talking  _ too.” 

“Oh yeah?” James leans in too. His nose brushes hers. “I’ve also really missed it —“

“For Merlin’s sake!” Sirius’ voice calls out. “Can you guys just fuck already?”

Lily and James freeze before bursting out into laughter. 

“Well,” James says, “you heard the man.” 

When he  _ — finally, finally — _ closes the distance between them, it’s to feel the curve of her smile against his own. 

A pillow collides with his head the next second. He doesn’t have to look to know that it belongs to Sirius.

“And use a silencing charm!”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment! And visit my tumblr if you have a prompt request!


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